What does this mode in the game change other than probably making the enemies easier to kill. Does it do anything with the UI or condense anything?

As far as I can tell it just makes the battles easier allowing you to trot through the game with minimal effort. All the systems in the game are still present.

Which is silly since the game is already incredibly easy.

@Mesoian said:

Which is silly since the game is already incredibly easy.

i'd heard from multiple people and reviews that towards the end the game is really hard. so you must be like amazing at it.

There's too much of a mixed opinion for this game, some say it has tremendous difficulty spikes, or that there's mass amounts of grinding to be done, or that the combat system is too complex and clunky. If it takes 40-60 hours to finish, I think I'll buy it and play it on easy if its gonna prevent me from wasting more time grinding to get through a game that's gonna take a long time anyway to beat.

@doobie:Either that, or he only played the demo.

Unexpected difficulty spikes are what made my time with Persona 4 so damn good.

Well. Partly.

@doobie said:

@Mesoian said:

Which is silly since the game is already incredibly easy.

i'd heard from multiple people and reviews that towards the end the game is really hard. so you must be like amazing at it.

I'm about 22 hours in and the only point that ever gave me any problems was Porco Rosso and Doing the quest to find the pieces of Mornstar out of order, so I ended up beating the ice continent while severely under leveled. I like the game a lot, but man, it's easy. Whenever I feel myself getting pressed against the wall, I just switch to my level 26 puss-n'-boots, who is still underleveled, and use evade and attack combos. I take no damage and end up doing 150-300 damage each attack session. Pair that with the Tin-Man I have Swaine using and you blast through pretty much every mob.

Edit: Oh, one thing that was surprisingly hard that took me by surprise was the battle tournament at the Trials Temple. I was shocked when my party wiped really early on. That was around the 12 hour mark though, I should go back and give it another try.

Oh, and the casino uses Vegas rules for everything except Platoon, so Blackjack is unbearable.

Enemies don't hit as hard.

Hearing there is an easy mode sold me on this game. I played the demo and I'm simply terrible at rpgs. I couldn't beat the first bad guy but the story and atmosphere looks amazing.

@coons84 said:

There's too much of a mixed opinion for this game, some say it has tremendous difficulty spikes, or that there's mass amounts of grinding to be done, or that the combat system is too complex and clunky. If it takes 40-60 hours to finish, I think I'll buy it and play it on easy if its gonna prevent me from wasting more time grinding to get through a game that's gonna take a long time anyway to beat.

So, regarding that:

I think people who are complaining about having to grind aren't doing the sidequests. Side quests don't reward you with anything but money and items, but more than that, they force you to go back into enemy infested areas. There was a sidequest early on that asks you to catch a couple of desert mobs and I probably spent an hour finding and killing them over and over waiting for one of them to go heartmode so I could catch it.

The only other thing it could be is that people are wandering into areas that have really higher level monsters. There's a bit of connective tissue between the desert and the valley where the Crypt of Woe (castle of tears? whatever) is where some pretty high level mobs hang out and can cause problems, especially since they look similar to the mobs that you were just fighting. The game keeps you on a certain path that way that you can't really break out of until way later in the game. The only times I've died were when I wandered into those areas or I was messing around with newly obtained or evolved familiars.

@billyhoush said:

Hearing there is an easy mode sold me on this game. I played the demo and I'm simply terrible at rpgs. I couldn't beat the first bad guy but the story and atmosphere looks amazing.

To be fair, that demo is TERRRRRRRRRRRRRRIBLE at explaining how the game works. Going to the volcano actually did a better job showing me how to fight and use items and switch familiars than being thrust into a boss fight with no context.

I've had several rough spots personally which today I learned was due to my attachment to my starters.(I've leaned especially hard on my mite. I've also been stingy with treats.) Some features of the battle system aren't explained very well and they can really bite you in the ass.

The only thing that makes this game hard is the dumb as rocks AI, Esther tries to physically attack enemies about 50% of my battles even though she's doing 1 damage each time, and of course if I try to switch Olliver puts his familiar away and starts attacking. I'm also not liking how limited MP is and how much spells cost, almost level 40 and Esther has like 90 mp. Which would be fine but you fight a lot of battles on the way through each area, so the game kinda seems to funnel you towards melee familiars. Maybe everyone gets way more MP later in the game or something? Maybe I'm just playing wrong by trying to have a few spellcasters?

Lately I've just been setting the other party members to go all out and I have all the healing and important stuff on Oliver because he has like twice the MP, because I can't trust the ai to do anything but attack. I'm really liking this game but the combat is just not clicking with me for whatever reason, its not like I'm dying constantly though. I haven't died since that squid boss and I only died once to it, its just kinda annoying me.

@Mesoian: Maaaan. Porco Grosso was a wake-up call. Even worse one (for me) was trotting the ocean toward the pirate bit. The monsters in parts of that ocean were terrifying (almost one-shotting).

Easy mode should let you use provisions while having a familiar out. I want that ability so badly.